Simple beginnings

It is a rainy Sunday afternoon. The tall trees in my backyard are touching the thick canopy of a gray sky. A lone bird is flapping its wings through the clouds. I wonder if it is beginning a new journey. Give me some space today, maybe a small corner next to this window, so I may sit there and do nothing.

The taste of the hot tea I sipped in the morning is still lingering in my mind. Give me a few moments so I may wrap myself in this foggy afternoon. Let me rest a little and dissolve into this lull.

Give me a respite so that in this void then, activity will have a fair chance to rise. A spontaneous activity that brings simple joy. A youthful mind that knows how to act freely. Like a playful swing on a wide, open beach.

Give me some space so that I may rebel. Do you not see that only after I sip that defiance, I may morph into the most poised person there could be?

Give me that assurance, just a tiny assurance that I don’t really have any obligations, not even to myself. Do you not see that in that careless arrogance are the seeds of deep responsibility?

Give me space to feel my pain fully, without having to minimize it by mapping it on the scale of global suffering. When I truly see my pain, that understanding will hold the beginning of an unbound empathy.

I am nothing if not a play of seeming opposites. In my devilish drunken laughter, angels rush to sing.

Give me space so I can fill it with air and breathe it carefully. Not as a wife or a mother or a woman, but simply as a being that breathes. Let me play if I want to play, let me work if I want to work. Don’t bother forcing on me this work-play balance.

Let me be in that space where there is no one feeding me intelligent teachings. Not even that ancient wisdom that tells me again and again to ‘live in the moment’. For when I am ‘thinking’ about living in the moment, am I really living in the moment?

Give me a moment where I may forget present. Where I may face my past, unfold the dreams of future and watch as they both fade away slowly and then zero in on present.

Give me space to bury my prejudices. When I bury them and stand with my head straight, give me the freedom to even bury my happiness if I so choose.

Give me space so I can place a few musical notes in it and spread the crescendo of my melody. For without that space, there is no music. Without that space, there is no painting. Give me some space when I dance so my feet may fall lightly even on unfamiliar beats.

A space so gentle and flexible that it can dance and twist, and I will watch as thousand universes awaken in that möbius strip.

If you have read thus far, let me just say: this is not a prayer, not at all. I am not asking for anything. It is simply a conviction that forms the conditions of my life, my being.

So like I was saying, I will be in this corner a bit longer and write my story. A story that doesn’t have to fit in a page. Oh yes, this is only a beginning.